Chapter 15 – First on the List
The snow fell all night and into morning.
When I woke, it had drifted against the loft's door, a low white barrier that muffled even the usual creak of the landing boards.
I dressed by the dim light that slipped through the shutters, the cold biting at my fingers as I worked the buttons closed.
The folded scrap of parchment still lay where I had left it—beside the iron seal and the ledger, the three of them forming a kind of quiet accusation.
You are being watched.
I did not doubt it.
But whatever eyes had marked me, they had not stopped me yet.
---
I took the list of names from my coat and smoothed it flat against the table.
Six lines, six chances to choose poorly.
At the top was a name I recognized: Garren Tull.
A spice merchant, if the rumors were true, though the guild had struck his charter two seasons before for debts he never admitted to owing.
Of the six, he seemed the least likely to bolt or betray me outright.
I slipped the parchment into my inner pocket and gathered my satchel.
Outside, the snow rose past my ankles in the alley. Each step left a clean impression behind, as if marking my passage for any who cared to track it.
I did not hurry.
---
Garren Tull's last known address lay at the eastern edge of Hallowmere, near the old salt warehouses. The walk took the better part of an hour, though the distance was not so great. Every street seemed heavier beneath the snow, every corner held the possibility of a watching eye.
By the time I reached the squat brick building, the thin sun had begun to fade behind the warehouses' slate roofs.
A battered sign hung beside the door, the painted letters almost worn away. Tull & Son Trading.
I knocked twice, then again after a pause.
For a time, nothing stirred.
Then a voice called from within—low, hoarse, carrying the faint edge of suspicion.
"Go away."
"I'm not with the guild," I called back.
Silence.
I pressed my gloved hand to the doorframe, feeling the cold seep through the wool.
"I'm here to offer you a chance," I said.
Still no reply.
I reached into my pocket and withdrew the iron seal, holding it where the faint daylight might catch the copper chasing.
"I carry Elinne's mark."
Another long pause. Then the scrape of a bolt being drawn back.
The door opened a hand's breadth.
A single eye peered out—bloodshot, wary.
"Show me," the voice rasped.
I held the seal higher.
A rough exhale, half relief and half resignation.
The door swung open the rest of the way.
Garren Tull stood in the threshold, older than I'd expected. His beard had gone mostly gray, and the hollows beneath his eyes spoke of more than simple fatigue.
"Inside," he said curtly.
I stepped over the threshold, and he shut the door behind me.
The room was close with the smell of old cloves and stale smoke. Crates lined the walls, each stamped with the faint shadow of a guild seal that had been burned away.
Tull gestured to a chair beside a low table.
"Sit, then," he said.
I did, resting the seal in my palm where he could see it.
For a time, he only studied my face.
"I thought Elinne had better sense," he muttered.
"Perhaps she does," I said evenly. "And perhaps I'm only here because no one else will come."
That drew a thin smile, though it held no warmth.
"You talk like a man already tired of bargaining."
"I am."
He eased himself into the chair opposite me, the joints of it creaking under his weight.
"You carry something," he said at last. "I don't mean the seal."
"I know."
"Does she?"
"I don't think so."
Tull grunted, as though this confirmed something he'd already suspected.
"Then you should be careful how many doors you knock on," he said quietly. "Not every man on that list will welcome you."
"I don't expect them to."
He leaned back, eyes closing briefly.
"You came to offer me a chance," he said. "Speak it plain."
I drew a slow breath.
"You know what you've lost," I said. "I'm offering you a path back to profit. To relevance."
"And the cost?"
"Loyalty."
His eyes opened again, sharp despite the weariness.
"To you?"
"To something better than the guild."
For a moment, the only sound was the wind slipping through the gaps in the shutters.
At last, Tull reached out and took the seal from my hand, turning it once in his thick fingers.
"I'll hear more," he said.
It was not acceptance. But it was not refusal.
For now, that was enough.
Tull set the iron seal down between us, the copper face catching the lamplight in dull reflections.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The silence was not companionable. It felt like a cord stretched taut between two weights, waiting for one to slip.
"You think you can build something," he said finally.
"I know I can."
He gave a humorless laugh, though it held no real amusement.
"I watched your little defiance at the tribunal," he said. "Word spreads faster than any decree."
"Then you know I won't bow."
"That's not the same as knowing how to stand."
I inclined my head. I would not pretend to more experience than I had earned.
"But you have nothing left the guild wants to reclaim," I said quietly. "That makes you more dangerous than any of their licensed traders."
His gaze flicked to the crates lining the walls, the burned-away seals that marked them as contraband by default.
"They took everything," he said after a moment. "Not just the ledgers or the warehouse. They took the trust of every man I traded with for twenty years."
"You can win that back," I said. "Not by waiting for their mercy. By proving you can still move goods they can't control."
He studied me, eyes narrowing as if searching for the lie behind my certainty.
"And you'd stake your life on that?"
"I already have."
---
Tull's hand closed around the iron seal, the knuckles whitening.
"You're not the first to stand here," he said. "Others have come with promises. Some from Elinne herself. They made bargains in the dark, and most were gone by the next season."
"I'm still here."
"Yes." He let the seal rest again on the table. "And you've survived more than most."
A long pause.
Then he leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees.
"What do you want from me?"
"Access," I said. "Your old routes. The names of buyers who still trust you more than they trust the guild."
"And in return?"
"Favorable shares. Protection when the guild tries to strike back."
His mouth twisted.
"You talk like you have an army."
"I have something they can't measure," I said.
He lifted a brow.
"And what is that?"
I let the silence stretch before I answered.
"Conviction," I said simply.
---
Tull sat back again, studying my face with an expression I could not read.
"Conviction won't keep you warm," he said at last.
"No," I agreed. "But it can burn down whatever tries to smother it."
---
The wind rattled the shutters, sending a thin dusting of snow from the sill onto the floor.
He seemed to consider that, gaze drifting to the window before returning to mine.
"You'll have your list," he said.
"And your answer?"
"You'll have that when I've spoken to the men who still take my calls."
I nodded.
"That's fair."
He reached into his coat and withdrew a small iron key, worn smooth by years of handling.
"For the back storeroom," he said. "If this is to work, you'll need somewhere to land goods unnoticed."
I accepted the key without comment. It felt colder than any metal had a right to be.
"Don't make me regret this," he said quietly.
"I won't."
---
When I stepped back into the snow, the first stars had begun to glimmer behind the ragged clouds.
I turned the key over in my palm, feeling the ridged teeth press into my glove.
One door opened. Five more names on the list.
And somewhere beyond them, a hundred more choices I could no longer avoid.
---
The walk back to the loft was long.
Twice, I paused to be sure I was not followed. The alleys were empty, but the sense of eyes watching had returned—some patient presence content to wait just out of sight.
When I reached my door, I did not go in immediately.
I stood there in the dark, the iron key in one hand and the folded list in the other, feeling the cold seep through my coat.
In that moment, I understood something I had not been willing to name before.
I was not simply surviving.
I was becoming.